Archive for December, 2005

Xin nian kuai le!

2005 was one big roller-coaster ride for me, lots of changes, lots of action, ups and downs, and never a dull moment. I enjoyed the year, but it was certainly not always easy. Being an entrepreneur means taking risks and working (sometimes extremely) hard on things you believe in. This is not always easy to combine with a normal private life.On the private life-side the beginning of 2005 was difficult when Qi had an operation, but luckily everything turned out well. Shortly after that I...
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Funny or sad?

This picture I took last weekend in the Longhua Cemetery. It seems like someone took his mother out for a walk around the place, but got tired of it. So this person stopped the wheelchair next to a monument, threw a coat over her head and walked off. The mother did not seem to mind, maybe she was asleep? I could not check that out because the coat covered her face. 15 minutes later she was still there. Funny or...
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Gmail blocked again!

I cannot believe it, my Gmail account is blocked again. This afternoon I decided to download the remaining messages to my mail client. I only had a few months left to download and estimated that the amount would be less than what I downloaded 2 days ago, so I should be safe. But no, ten minutes ago I received the lockdown message again. Luckily I now have almost all my messages downloaded (it stopped on Dec. 24, so one week left), and so I have a back-up of most mails. I will send Google an...
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Longhua Cemetery of Revolutionary Martyrs

On Christmas Day I also went to the Longhua Cemetery of Revolutionary Martyrs. It's a nice place for a walk, because it is one of the very few places in Shanghai where it is actually quiet. You don't hear the noise of cars, and there are hardly any people. In summer you are even allowed to walk and sit on the grass (very unusual for China). The place is a museum for Revolutionary Martyrs, and some of them are supposed to be buried here as well.The museum is located in a glass pyramid, and is...
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China Radio International interview

I did a radio interview with CRI about two weeks ago, but was informed that there was no mp3 of the program available (something went wrong in the studio). But someone just told me that the program is actually online, and can be found here. Click on the "listen" link on that page, the segment with the interview (about Toodou and the influence of podcasting on radio) starts at...
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Gmail unblocked

My Gmail account suddenly started working again 2 hours ago (I did not get a reply from Google to the email in which I had to give them all the details about what happened). I feel relieved!I missed 38 emails over the past 24 hours, luckily most people are on vacation, otherwise it would have been a much bigger problem. I am not sure if I should start downloading my mails again right now. I am a bit afraid it will close down automatically again, I'll probably wait a few days...
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Gmail account disabled

One thing I did not realize until today is how much my daily life depends on Gmail. Because of the all the computer problems I had recently, I lost all my emails that I saved in Outlook and Entourage. But that was not a big deal because all my emails accounts are automatically forwarded to my Gmail account, so I have a back-up there.Today I decided to reinstall Outlook on my laptop and Mail (not Entourage this time) on my Apple. I set up the Gmail pop3 account settings on both machines and let...
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Longhua Temple

On Christmas Day I decided to go for a stroll at the Longhua Temple. This is supposed to be the oldest temple in Shanghai, built over 1700 years ago (although it has been rebuilt several times due to fires). And as I learned, it is also the biggest temple in Shanghai. For some reason I had never been to this place before, and because it was nice weather (about 10 degrees and sunny) it seemed a good time to visit.The temple is located about 2 kilometers south of my home (actually very close to...
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Almost Christmas

It's the afternoon of December 24, almost Christmas Eve. But I am not really in Christmas mood yet. Why? Probably because I decided to stay in Shanghai this year. Even though there are lots of decorations on the street and you hear Christmas songs everywhere, there is not really a Christmas spirit in China. People keep on working, if I look down from my apartment I see the construction workers building up another crane, and the traffic jams on Caoxi Lu are the same as on a normal Saturday....
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Toodou New Year Party 2006

On Friday January 6 from 8 PM onwards Toodou.com will organize it's first annual New Year Party. This year's theme will be "Gluehwein & Gaming". Bloggers and podcasters from Shanghai (or who happen to be in Shanghai) who want to join, please leave a comment or send me an email at marcvanderchijs (at) gmail dot com. We have limited space, so if you wait too long you might miss out on this one!During the party we will have traditional German Gluehwein and you can bring your favourite video...
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Hooters Shanghai

Just came back from a business dinner for China Bay at Hooters Shanghai. I knew the place existed, but had never been there. It is a fun place for a burger and a beer, but of course the waitresses are a bit different from the ladies that serve you in Hooters bars in the US or Amsterdam. But the fun is certainly not less, the girls dance and sing around (they even perform Christmas songs!) and are extremely friendly. A bit like a decent Maoming Lu bar with more light and much better food. Lots...
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Chinese police on instant messenger

Pacific Epoch reports about an innovative idea from the Hangzhou police. They will start a police station service on Chinese leading instant messenger (IM) service QQ. Internet users will be able to report crimes, provide information for investigations and ask questions related to security issues.However, a police officer will only be online between 8 and 9 PM. This is a bit strange in my opinion, if something happens you should be able to report it right away and not have to wait until 8 PM at...
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Fire!

During lunch I decided to buy some software for my computer (I needed to reinstall Office 2003) and went to my favourite software place close to Xiangyang market. While crossing Huaihai Road I noticed that people were all looking up at the sky. I wondered why and also looked up. There was a huge amount of smoke coming out of the new building next to Xiangyang market. It looked more spectacular than it really was though: according to a comment on Shanghaiist it was just an A/C unit on a lower...
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Computer problems again…

Lately I seem not to have a lot of luck with computers. After all the trouble with my Apple Powerbook last month I bought a BenQ that had to be exchanged for a new one after two weeks because of defects. The new one worked fine for a while, but suddenly got extremley slow. First I thought of a virus, but that was not the case. The harddisk was also not almost full, and a restart did not make much of a difference. Starting up took 10 minutes, and Outlook did not work at all anymore. I wasn't...
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Shanghai – Beijing by train in 7 hours

I wanted to post about this earlier already, but did not find the time yet. Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday that the speed of trains between Beijing and Shanghai will be increased from 160 km/h to 200 km/h, leading to a travel time of only 7 hours. According to the article the current travel time is 13.5 hours (although I think the fastest train - the overnight express- takes actually only 12 hours). If you think about it - something Xinhua never does - , it is a bit strange that by...
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Week in review

It was a busy week again this week, both at Toodou and China Bay. At Toodou we had several visitors, among other Christine de Baan (see post from Monday), Moody Glasgow and Dennis Tse. Moody flew in for the second time in two weeks, and we had good meetings with him. Afterwards we had dinner at Paulaner Brauhaus (Moody had never had German food before!) and then drinks at Zapata's and Bourbon Street. Moody used to be a commercial producer, so we had lots of common topics. I mentioned that I...
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Anti internet addiction TV show

iResearch has news about a new TV show:China will soon begin broadcasting an anti-Internet addiction TV show, reports China Youth Daily. The TV series is called 'The Story of Shan Dian Mao' and will have 38 episodes. The show was produced by the China Commission to Care for the Next Generation, China Youth League's Online Movie and TV Center, and the China Youth Internet Association.Problem is that they might not reach the intended target group, as those people are stuck behind their...
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Wikipedia browser

In China Wikipedia has been blocked for several months now, and nobody knows when (or if) the site will be unblocked. Because I used the site quite often, I have been looking for alternative ways to get onto to the site. It is possible to browse the site through a proxy server, but I found a much easier solution: Gollum, The Wikipedia BrowserWhat is Gollum (entry, including hyperlinks, copied from Wikipedia)?:Gollum Browser is a simplified Web browser that only opens articles from Wikipedia....
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Exhibition

Today Christine de Baan from The Netherlands visited Toodou, where we showed her some of the video clips that people upload. Christine is quite well-known in cultural and art circles in Holland, and the reason of her visit is because she is the guest curator of an exhibition in the Netherlands Photography Museum on contemporary visual culture in China. The exhibition will open on June 10, 2006, coinciding with an exhibition on the new generation of Chinese architects in the Netherlands...
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Lhasa – Kathmandu by bike: who wants to join?

Gary and I have been talking about it for a while already, but as you can see from the posting below, now it is becoming quite serious: we plan to ride our mountain bikes from Lhasa in Tibet to Nepal's capital city of Kathmandu. This is one of the most difficult bike rides in the world, not really because of the distance (it's about 1050 kilometers), but especially because of the altitude. Most of this adventurous ride is far above 4000 meters, and there are some Himalayan mountain passes of...
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